In Bihar, school kids exceed children population: CAG

Written By kom nampultig on Rabu, 16 Juli 2014 | 08.20

PATNA: The number of children enrolled in government-run schools was more than their population in the 6-14 age group in Bihar's four districts, revealed a CAG 2013 report.

The four districts are Gaya, Sitamarhi, Khagaria and Kishanganj, says the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India in its report, released on Tuesday.

In Gaya, 871,428 children were found enrolled in schools, which was more than the population of children (8,58,434) in the district.

Similarly, in Sitamarhi, number of children was 6,65,640 but as many as 6,67,354 were enrolled in schools.

In Khagaria, the number of children was 350,053 but 369,106 were on the school rolls. In Kishanganj, 343,962 children lived in the district but 394,897 were shown as attending school.

According to the report, the school enrollment figure exceeded the actual population by 84,696 children in these four districts.

The report also pointed to two percent enrollment fall during 2012-13 in comparison to the previous year, besides inflated enrolment figures.

"In many schools, presence of children was less than actually shown in the attendance register and the shortage ranged from 10 percent to 99 percent," the report said.

It added that scrutiny of admission and attendance registers of class I in 125 schools in Nawada, Rohtas, Kishanganj and Saran for 2012-13 showed that 5,104 children were shown as enrolled against the admission figure of 3,691.

Other findings of the report said of the 71,762 schools, 357 were running without any teacher while 5,002 schools were making do with just one teacher each as of March 2013.

The number of school dropouts in the state was 9.50 lakh and 43 percent posts of teachers were vacant. As many as 1,896 areas where people reside were deprived of school facility as of March 2012.

Even the student and teacher ratio of 53:1 in 2008-09 worsened to 59:1 during 2012-13. The norm is 40:1.

"Despite availability of funds, only 56 percent new school buildings, 60 percent additional classrooms and 26 percent headmasters' rooms could be completed in the past eight years," the report said.

The report said the objective of universalization of elementary education in the state is yet to be achieved due to "non-preparation of perspective plan or preparation of annual plans on unreliable data, deficient management system, under utilization of funds and resultant non-receipt of central government's share to the tune of Rs.12,231.60 crore".